The aftermath of the formidable Storm Helene has taken a grim toll, with at least 53 lives lost, as reported by officials. First responders—facing challenges like washed-out bridges and debris-laden roadways—are conducting searches house-by-house in the areas most ravaged across several states in the eastern US.
According to the latest tallies from local authorities reported by AFP, the casualty figures include at least 22 fatalities in South Carolina, 17 in Georgia, 11 in Florida, two in North Carolina, and one in Virginia.
Helene made landfall in Florida late Thursday as a fierce Category 4 hurricane, sweeping northward and causing unprecedented destruction as it gradually lost strength.
Repair teams swung into action this morning, while the National Weather Service noted that conditions were likely to “get better today following the catastrophic flooding experienced over the last couple of days.”
As of Saturday afternoon, nearly three million customers were still enduring power outages across ten states, stretching from Florida’s southeastern region to parts of Indiana and Ohio in the Midwest, as tracked by poweroutage.us.
The storm left behind a jumbled mess, with boats tossed about in harbors, illustrating the chaos it unleashed.
Upon its initial strike, Helene unleashed winds reaching a staggering 225 kilometers per hour on Florida’s northern Gulf coast.
Even in its diminished state as a post-tropical cyclone, Helene continued to unleash devastation.
Record-breaking floods posed an imminent threat to numerous dams. Fortunately, Tennessee emergency officials announced that the Nolichucky Dam, which had been on the brink, was no longer in jeopardy, allowing residents downstream to return home.
Asheville, a city nestled in western North Carolina, recorded massive flooding, prompting Governor Ray Cooper to label it “one of the worst storms in modern history” for his state.
Some folks in South Carolina—accustomed to hurricane strikes—lamented that Helene stood out as the worst storm in four decades.
Reports emerged of isolated towns in the Carolina mountains left in the dark without power or cellular connections, their access roads washed away or cloaked under mudslides.
On Cedar Key, a small island community with a population of around 700 located just off Florida’s northwest coast, the hurricane’s terrifying might became painfully evident.
Officials had earnestly urged residents in the storm’s trajectory to follow evacuation orders. National Hurricane Center Director Michael Brennan described the expected storm surge as “unsurvivable.”
Several vibrant pastel homes fell victim to the relentless storm surges and violent gusts.
“I’ve lived here all my life, and it shatters my heart to witness this. We can’t seem to catch a break,” expressed Gabe Doty, an official from Cedar Key, referencing two hurricanes they endured in the previous year.
President Biden labeled the damage as “overwhelming,” summing up the scale of the disaster.
Tragically, the death toll in South Carolina included two firefighters, while Georgia mourned the loss of an emergency responder among its 17 fatalities, as per state officials.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis remarked that the destruction wrought by Helene surpassed that of previous hurricanes Idalia and Debby. “It’s truly a gut punch to those communities,” he shared during an interview with Fox News.
On the upscale Anna Maria Island, just south of Tampa, nearly every home at ground level faced flooding, with roads buried under a thick layer of sand, as detailed by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
Meanwhile, in Erwin, Tennessee, a dramatic rescue operation unfolded when more than 50 patients and hospital staff found themselves stranded on a rooftop, trapped by rising floodwaters, requiring helicopter evacuations.
Remnants of Helene, now a weakened storm, continued to drench the lower Midwest Saturday.
In his Saturday statement, President Biden addressed the devastation brought on by Helene, calling it “overwhelming.” He announced the deployment of additional response teams and dispatched Deanne Criswell, the administrator of FEMA, to Florida for damage assessment.
Currently, FEMA has mobilized more than 800 personnel to assist in the stricken states. September has proven to be an unusually rainy month globally, with scientists drawing connections between extreme weather occurrences and human-induced climate change.
Edited by: Ali Musa
Axadle international–Monitoring
